In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks, that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products.
We as a Product Managers need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, e.g. do we add feature A or feature B? We need to think beyond the silo of our function.
Agile localization as a business advantage workshopVasco Duarte
Was the release of your project ever delayed when localization problems were found too late? Or worst, delayed subsequent products because of this delay? Or the fact that UI specifications quickly get out of date, leaving us with very poor quality testing by localization testing vendors. In most projects localization is still done in “waterfall” mode. Localization teams are typically involved at a very late stage of the development cycle.
We have lived through many of these problems, and we believe that Localization and Agile software development were born to be together
Cobis and Oikosofy 5 Innovation shots for the banking industryVasco Duarte
Banking is here to stay, but Banks may not. The incoming wave of technology companies dedicated to banking requires banks to consider what innovation strategy, and execution framework they will implement in the coming 5 years. SAFe - an Agile framework for the Enterprise - provides a proven approach to align teams, management, deploy strategy quickly and help teams and organizations focus on the high impact opportunities. This one-hour workshop will introduce the SAFe framework and explain how it can be used as a blueprint for building a culture of innovation that provides a proven method to implement strategies in an agile manner, and develop competitive businesses. From strategy definition to day-to-day execution.
What am I going to get from this course?
• What does a “Culture of Innovation” mean?
The Basics of what it is & how it works
• What are the Key Ingredients for building a culture of innovation?
Building teams, and teams of teams to scale adaptability and agility
Structured and proven approach, based on learnings in the banking industry all over the world
Understanding your customers wants, needs and aspirations
Measuring success and learning quickly with the right framework to speed up learning
• Creating an Innovation Strategy
From an idea to a real-life product in mere weeks. With a method that helps execute, and adapt
Innovation accounting, a radical approach to testing new products, services in a cost-effective and high impact mannero
Motivating innovation contributions at all levels of the organization with a method that empowers all employees to make a difference
Fast time-to-market with the framework to help measure the results and adapt based on near real-time market feedback
Implementing Dual-Track Agile :: Lessons from the trenches @ITSpring.by May 2019Pedro Teixeira
Evermore people are talking about Discovery and Hypothesis-driven approaches. But where do you start? What do they really mean?
Pedro will share with us how he moved away from a 2-year delivery roadmap by enabling his Engineering teams to do a Dual Track Agile. A real case-study!
Key Learning Points:
- Understand what Dual Track Agile is
- Learn why Pedro and his team decided to use it at OutSystems
- Know what was the strategy in place for the Change Management
- Understand their failures and what they have learned with it
- Identify some Common Pitfalls
- Understand the importance of cadence for alignment and trust
- Understand the importance of building (truly) autonomous teams
Case study for agile software development: Joe Crespo
How Agile (Scrum) is working for our team. Take a look at our methodology, how we're organizing the project, how we're approaching the 4 ceremonies, and how our practice might work for you.
The first part of this presentation is a situational assessment of typical challenges in IT project delivery using the SCRAP (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Proof) model. This is essentially a business case for Agile. So if you are looking for ways to get buy-in for Agile, this is the place to be.
The second part of this presentation shows you what Agile is from 50,000 ft. From this high up, we'll be covering the essential elements from a business and management perspective. We'll cover what Agile is, what it does, how it works and what it achieves.
If you are interested in learning or communicating the value of Agile, then this is the presentation for you!
Please email me if you would like a download.
Agile localization as a business advantage workshopVasco Duarte
Was the release of your project ever delayed when localization problems were found too late? Or worst, delayed subsequent products because of this delay? Or the fact that UI specifications quickly get out of date, leaving us with very poor quality testing by localization testing vendors. In most projects localization is still done in “waterfall” mode. Localization teams are typically involved at a very late stage of the development cycle.
We have lived through many of these problems, and we believe that Localization and Agile software development were born to be together
Cobis and Oikosofy 5 Innovation shots for the banking industryVasco Duarte
Banking is here to stay, but Banks may not. The incoming wave of technology companies dedicated to banking requires banks to consider what innovation strategy, and execution framework they will implement in the coming 5 years. SAFe - an Agile framework for the Enterprise - provides a proven approach to align teams, management, deploy strategy quickly and help teams and organizations focus on the high impact opportunities. This one-hour workshop will introduce the SAFe framework and explain how it can be used as a blueprint for building a culture of innovation that provides a proven method to implement strategies in an agile manner, and develop competitive businesses. From strategy definition to day-to-day execution.
What am I going to get from this course?
• What does a “Culture of Innovation” mean?
The Basics of what it is & how it works
• What are the Key Ingredients for building a culture of innovation?
Building teams, and teams of teams to scale adaptability and agility
Structured and proven approach, based on learnings in the banking industry all over the world
Understanding your customers wants, needs and aspirations
Measuring success and learning quickly with the right framework to speed up learning
• Creating an Innovation Strategy
From an idea to a real-life product in mere weeks. With a method that helps execute, and adapt
Innovation accounting, a radical approach to testing new products, services in a cost-effective and high impact mannero
Motivating innovation contributions at all levels of the organization with a method that empowers all employees to make a difference
Fast time-to-market with the framework to help measure the results and adapt based on near real-time market feedback
Implementing Dual-Track Agile :: Lessons from the trenches @ITSpring.by May 2019Pedro Teixeira
Evermore people are talking about Discovery and Hypothesis-driven approaches. But where do you start? What do they really mean?
Pedro will share with us how he moved away from a 2-year delivery roadmap by enabling his Engineering teams to do a Dual Track Agile. A real case-study!
Key Learning Points:
- Understand what Dual Track Agile is
- Learn why Pedro and his team decided to use it at OutSystems
- Know what was the strategy in place for the Change Management
- Understand their failures and what they have learned with it
- Identify some Common Pitfalls
- Understand the importance of cadence for alignment and trust
- Understand the importance of building (truly) autonomous teams
Case study for agile software development: Joe Crespo
How Agile (Scrum) is working for our team. Take a look at our methodology, how we're organizing the project, how we're approaching the 4 ceremonies, and how our practice might work for you.
The first part of this presentation is a situational assessment of typical challenges in IT project delivery using the SCRAP (Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Proof) model. This is essentially a business case for Agile. So if you are looking for ways to get buy-in for Agile, this is the place to be.
The second part of this presentation shows you what Agile is from 50,000 ft. From this high up, we'll be covering the essential elements from a business and management perspective. We'll cover what Agile is, what it does, how it works and what it achieves.
If you are interested in learning or communicating the value of Agile, then this is the presentation for you!
Please email me if you would like a download.
Agile has an inherent focus on teams. The Agile principle, “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” stresses the importance of how people work together. Therefore, strong Agile team dynamics is a key component of a high functioning Agile organization.
In this presentation, you’ll learn about the signs to look for in a dynamic Agile team room and how to get a team performant - and happy.
The 11 Signs of Good Agile Room Dynamics
1. Deliverables are everyone’s responsibility.
2. Team Lead and Architect roles may be designated, but delivery is everyone’s responsibility.
3. Everyone is engaged & respected.
4. Healthy debate and conflict happens – and compromise.
5. Whiteboard sessions.
6. Members help each other.
7. Team members have confidence in each others’ abilities.
8. No egos.
9. Buzz in the room.
10. Celebrations of small successes.
11. Music.
How to Maintain Healthy Agile Project Room Dynamics
These are the things that Agile Teams implement to maintain healthy project room dynamics:
1. Group negotiation of team rules.
2. Team lunches.
3. Storming as a given.
4. Pairing negotiation.
5. Always listen in.
6. Conflict amongst team members.
7. Decisions.
8. Engage the larger development team.
9. Incorporating new team members.
10. Humour & food.
Presentation I gave to the Chicago ACM about Lean Software Development. Full audio can be found here:
https://soundcloud.com/griffinc/intro-to-lean-software
Agile software development has proven to be more successful than traditional methods. However there are many Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP). It is difficult to make a right choice.
Do you want to know the differences between Scrum and Lean? Perhaps you struggle with your existing Scrum implementation and looking for a better methodology. So did I. I spent many hours looking for continuous improvement beyond Retrospectives and Sprint Reviews. And I found my answer in applying Lean Principles.
This session will help you to increase your understanding of Lean and Scrum. It will also give you some practical examples of implementing Lean in Scrum teams.
User Story Mapping for Minimum Lovable Productsuxpin
You'll learn:
How to visualize user needs instead of product features
How to make better decisions when prioritizing a UX backlog
How to align sprints with UX strategy
Kyiv Project Management Day 2016 Іванна Заєць: Основи ПМа (PM’s Essentials)
Сайт конференції: http://pmday.org/
Спільнота в мережі Linkedin: http://bit.ly/PMDayLin
Спільнота в мережі facebook: http://bit.ly/PMDayKyivFB
Twitter конференції: https://twitter.com/LvivPMDay
Slides Ari Tiktin recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
Agile2009 - How to sell a traditional client on an Agile project planOpenSource Connections
12 suggestions for how to convince traditional clients to agree to an Agile project plan. Presented by Arin Sime of OpenSource Connections at Agile 2009 in Chicago.
Estimating user stories is central to the Agile planning process. An estimate is a measure of the relative size, in terms of effort, of a story. These estimates help answer questions such as:
• How many stories can we fit into the release?
• How many stories will be completed in the next iteration?
• What are the impacts of adding, removing and changing stories?
What you’ll learn in this presentation:
• How estimates are used on Agile projects.
• How to define estimates.
• The basics of planning poker to help estimate.
Lean software engineering emphasizes continuous delivery of high quality applications. Ken Pugh explains the principles and practices that form the basis of lean software development―concentrating on developing a continuous flow by eliminating delays and loopbacks; delivering quickly by developing in small batches; emphasizing high quality which decreases delays due to defect repair; making policies, process and progress transparent; optimizing the whole rather than individual steps; and becoming more efficient by decreasing waste. Ken describes lean’s emphasis on cycle time, rather than resource utilization, and demonstrates the value stream map which helps you visualize the development cycle flow to identify bottlenecks. He explores the differences between push and pull flow, describes how lean thinking shows up in agile processes including Scrum and Extreme Programming, and discusses how lean can be applied to the entire workflow—not just the development portion. Ken concludes with a discussion of how you can begin your lean transformation.
I recently delivered a talk to product owners at Cisco. While I would normally cover this stuff over a period of two days, this was a 90 minute talk about some of the aspects of product ownership. None of this is my own creation - for I have learnt all this from the practitioner community, I am more than happy to share it with the community.
Note: If any attribution is missing, I will be happy to correct my mistake :)
All agile development begins with the sales process. Internally, adopting agile approaches require the support of top management and project managers. External clients have to be sold on the agile approach and convinced to sign a contract that allow for agile development. Sales teams have to be able to convince external clients that the agile approach is the best for their project.
Paul Klipp has been selling the agile process internally and to outside clients since 2004 with considerable success. In this presentation, he'll discuss how to sell the benefits of agile development to internal stakeholders and to outside clients and will provide an overview of different approaches to agile contracts.
Vasco Duarte - Agile Innovation - Product Management in turbulent times - ConFuDevConFu
In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks, that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products. We as a Product Managers need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, e.g. do we add feature A or feature B? We need to think beyond the silo of our function to be able to drive innovation into our products. In this session we will look at the role of Product Managers in an agile product development environment, and as agents of innovation
Agile has an inherent focus on teams. The Agile principle, “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” stresses the importance of how people work together. Therefore, strong Agile team dynamics is a key component of a high functioning Agile organization.
In this presentation, you’ll learn about the signs to look for in a dynamic Agile team room and how to get a team performant - and happy.
The 11 Signs of Good Agile Room Dynamics
1. Deliverables are everyone’s responsibility.
2. Team Lead and Architect roles may be designated, but delivery is everyone’s responsibility.
3. Everyone is engaged & respected.
4. Healthy debate and conflict happens – and compromise.
5. Whiteboard sessions.
6. Members help each other.
7. Team members have confidence in each others’ abilities.
8. No egos.
9. Buzz in the room.
10. Celebrations of small successes.
11. Music.
How to Maintain Healthy Agile Project Room Dynamics
These are the things that Agile Teams implement to maintain healthy project room dynamics:
1. Group negotiation of team rules.
2. Team lunches.
3. Storming as a given.
4. Pairing negotiation.
5. Always listen in.
6. Conflict amongst team members.
7. Decisions.
8. Engage the larger development team.
9. Incorporating new team members.
10. Humour & food.
Presentation I gave to the Chicago ACM about Lean Software Development. Full audio can be found here:
https://soundcloud.com/griffinc/intro-to-lean-software
Agile software development has proven to be more successful than traditional methods. However there are many Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP). It is difficult to make a right choice.
Do you want to know the differences between Scrum and Lean? Perhaps you struggle with your existing Scrum implementation and looking for a better methodology. So did I. I spent many hours looking for continuous improvement beyond Retrospectives and Sprint Reviews. And I found my answer in applying Lean Principles.
This session will help you to increase your understanding of Lean and Scrum. It will also give you some practical examples of implementing Lean in Scrum teams.
User Story Mapping for Minimum Lovable Productsuxpin
You'll learn:
How to visualize user needs instead of product features
How to make better decisions when prioritizing a UX backlog
How to align sprints with UX strategy
Kyiv Project Management Day 2016 Іванна Заєць: Основи ПМа (PM’s Essentials)
Сайт конференції: http://pmday.org/
Спільнота в мережі Linkedin: http://bit.ly/PMDayLin
Спільнота в мережі facebook: http://bit.ly/PMDayKyivFB
Twitter конференції: https://twitter.com/LvivPMDay
Slides Ari Tiktin recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
Agile2009 - How to sell a traditional client on an Agile project planOpenSource Connections
12 suggestions for how to convince traditional clients to agree to an Agile project plan. Presented by Arin Sime of OpenSource Connections at Agile 2009 in Chicago.
Estimating user stories is central to the Agile planning process. An estimate is a measure of the relative size, in terms of effort, of a story. These estimates help answer questions such as:
• How many stories can we fit into the release?
• How many stories will be completed in the next iteration?
• What are the impacts of adding, removing and changing stories?
What you’ll learn in this presentation:
• How estimates are used on Agile projects.
• How to define estimates.
• The basics of planning poker to help estimate.
Lean software engineering emphasizes continuous delivery of high quality applications. Ken Pugh explains the principles and practices that form the basis of lean software development―concentrating on developing a continuous flow by eliminating delays and loopbacks; delivering quickly by developing in small batches; emphasizing high quality which decreases delays due to defect repair; making policies, process and progress transparent; optimizing the whole rather than individual steps; and becoming more efficient by decreasing waste. Ken describes lean’s emphasis on cycle time, rather than resource utilization, and demonstrates the value stream map which helps you visualize the development cycle flow to identify bottlenecks. He explores the differences between push and pull flow, describes how lean thinking shows up in agile processes including Scrum and Extreme Programming, and discusses how lean can be applied to the entire workflow—not just the development portion. Ken concludes with a discussion of how you can begin your lean transformation.
I recently delivered a talk to product owners at Cisco. While I would normally cover this stuff over a period of two days, this was a 90 minute talk about some of the aspects of product ownership. None of this is my own creation - for I have learnt all this from the practitioner community, I am more than happy to share it with the community.
Note: If any attribution is missing, I will be happy to correct my mistake :)
All agile development begins with the sales process. Internally, adopting agile approaches require the support of top management and project managers. External clients have to be sold on the agile approach and convinced to sign a contract that allow for agile development. Sales teams have to be able to convince external clients that the agile approach is the best for their project.
Paul Klipp has been selling the agile process internally and to outside clients since 2004 with considerable success. In this presentation, he'll discuss how to sell the benefits of agile development to internal stakeholders and to outside clients and will provide an overview of different approaches to agile contracts.
Vasco Duarte - Agile Innovation - Product Management in turbulent times - ConFuDevConFu
In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks, that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products. We as a Product Managers need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, e.g. do we add feature A or feature B? We need to think beyond the silo of our function to be able to drive innovation into our products. In this session we will look at the role of Product Managers in an agile product development environment, and as agents of innovation
LKNL12: Kanban for the whole value streamVasco Duarte
You’ve been there before. You know better, you have a good idea to support your agile transition. Work starts, things work well at first, but then you bump against organizational barriers. Sales, Marketing, Support all have a different language and a different view into the value stream. How can we start an organizational change without a shared model of how the company should be organized?
Those are all symptoms of a gap in our Agile community: we lack a organizational model for company-wide Agile adoption and company-wide continuous improvement. Examples of this include: no company-wide flow-model (kanban) from idea to sales to idea and so on; we have no way to evaluate where the bottlenecks are the moment they are not in “our silo”. We lack a theoretical model for designing software organizations.
A theory is something that informs day-to-day decisions and experiments (e.g. PDCA). In this talk we will explain an
organizational design concept developed over several years, and use concrete examples to describe a model that you can use in support of - not only your agile adoption - but your company improvement process and your new organizational design.
My presentation on Agile Vancouver conference in 2011
As the goal of Agile evangelists was to convince people to switch from long Waterfall projects, the main message was to think small – short iterations, no upfront design, and requirements that fit on a card. This presentation explores limitations and pitfalls of a purely iteration focused approach and discuss different ways to address them while still retaining the speed and flexibility of the Agile approach.
Shift left, shift right the testing swing.
This deck shows the testing framework we use today in our agile & Devops team. We do Behavior Driven Development (Shift left) and test in production as well (shift right).
Introduction to the scrum framework: roles, activities and artifacts.
Scrum is an agile methodology for project management, to create a high quality product.
www.nieldeckx.be
Meetup 31 UX Presentation by Ergonaute ConsultingSilicon Halton
Presenter 1 of 3 of 10 UX Methods To Help You Build Great Applications.
Rami Tabbah is a usability consultant with over 20 years experience. He holds a Masters of Engineering in Cognitive Ergonomics. His focus is to create efficient user interfaces that affect the business bottom line.
@Ergonaute
blog.ergonaute.net
See www.SiliconHalton.com
No estimates - a controversial way to improve estimation with results-handoutsVasco Duarte
Often we hear that estimating a project is a must. "We can't make decisions without them" we hear often.
In this session I'll present examples of how we can predict a release date of a project without any estimates, only relying on easily available data.
I'll show how we can follow progress on a project at all times without having to rely on guesswork, and we will review how large, very large and small projects have already benefited from this in the past.
At the end of the session you will be ready to start your own
#NoEstimates journey.
Changing business of testing - Testing Assembly Helsinki 2014Vasco Duarte
Testing jobs will move to cheaper countries unless the role of testing changes. This is a trend that is happening already, we see large teams of testers being moved to other countries, simply because it is cheaper to do bad testing there!
Testing is a critical part of the product and software development process, and if we don't change its role it will slowly become obsolete. The fact is, that the traditional view of testing endangers testing jobs: now here, and later also in cheaper countries.
I propose a different view of testing. I propose that testing is about enabling business results, not just technical quality. I propose that the tester's job goes far beyond finding issues to track, but also finding users to acquire, finding methods to succeed in the software business. Testing in my view is about making businesses succeed, not about avoid failures in software.
In this presentation I'll describe how a very simple change can profoundly transform the role of testing in a way that it directly enables and supports our businesses! Testing is about making our businesses succeed!
The road ahead is not easy, and not every tester is ready to embrace this view of testing. But the road ahead is inevitable. And we have to start on that journey now!
A quick trip to the future land of no estimatesVasco Duarte
Why do we estimate? What are the benefits we want to obtain with that practice? In this talk we'll explore the nature of estimates and offer an alternative: #NoEstimates. We'll look at some examples of how we can predict a release date of a project without any estimates, only relying on easily available data. Finally, we'll see how we can follow progress on a project at all times without having to rely on guesswork, and we will review how large, very large as well as small projects have already benefited from this in the past. At the end of the session you will be ready to start your own #NoEstimates journey, the next step in the #Agile journey.
Agile Beyond the Hype! – What You Really Need to Know Before You Jump In Vasco Duarte
Many companies adopt Agile because it is the natural thing to do. But do they know what they are getting into? In this talk we will use some anecdotes and lessons learned from Agile adoption to build a model that will hopefully help our companies adopt Agile in a way that affects positively their business.
Questions we try to address will include: How does Agile affect functions outside development? How to bring the benefits of Agile to non-development functions? What can Agile affect my bottom line?
Story Points considered harmful – a new look at estimation techniquesVasco Duarte
Story Points are the typical estimation unit for Agile Teams. But do they really work, or are there better ways to estimate? In this talk, we‘ll look at the problem of estimating, as well as empirical data questioning the validity of story points, and we‘ll explore new techniques, based on cognitive psychology, chronobiology, and good old common sense, that will immediately help your teams estimate more accurately.
Instead of fighting about “who’s agile” or “who’s more agile than whom”, it would be useful to create a set of patterns, that once recognized would help us define if we are or have been able to successfully implement an Agile life-cycle for our project and portfolio.
In this session we will explore how it “feels” to work in an Agile project. It is not enough to do Scrum or Kanban, you need to know if you are doing it right.
Patterns of agility, how to recognize and agile project when you see oneVasco Duarte
Presentation at Scan-Agile 2011 and Agile Riga Day 2011 about how to recognize what type of project you are in, and how to improve it towards a more agile, responsive, higher quality project
From an Idea to a Vision you can implement - Vision workshopVasco Duarte
You've been there. You are tasked with implementing a product that someone else cooked up. What do do next? Follow the spec you say? Wrong!
Developing a product without this Vision is not just waste, it is bad business for you and for your customer.
Before we start implementing any product we must explore it's reason to exist, what customers it benefits and ultimately how it can help your customers (not you!) make money.
In this workshop we will take an example and go through a simple process that helps us explore a product idea to the point that a spec is just a reference, but the product comes alive in the minds of the team members.
Business Agility - taking advantage of an agile R&DVasco Duarte
Many companies have jumped on the Agile bandwagon. That's good, but what for? In this talk we explore the consequences and possible benefits of adopting Agile for your Business. It's not enough to benefit your R&D, we need to learn how Agile can help our whole company.
A paradigm shift for testing - how to increase productivity 10x!Vasco Duarte
European IT industry need to deal with a huge salary gap with developing countries.
How can we increase our productivity and quality to compensate for the salary differences? This is a systems-thinking / Lean based approach to that problem
Agile is easy! It's making it work with your business that is hardVasco Duarte
A talk about the next level of Agile adoption. How do we make it work for our business? How does Agile adoption affect our R&D, our sales, our product management and ultimately our business success?
We need proof! - Talk at Agile Estonia's Agile SaturdayVasco Duarte
This is a call to action for all Agilists out there. It is not enough to see and experience the success of Agile. For our industry to truly evolve we need to start publishing data, figures, proof that it is indeed a better approach.
Check out the companion blog post here: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.blogspot.com/2010/02/we-need-proof-for-better-understanding.html
13. Added Value Slow Processes: a (BAD) example
One day
Brainstorming
new product
idea 6 months
6 months product
trying to get development
the project
approved
Time
14. Consequences of slow processes:
• Higher costs -> due to the amount of
work that is pending while the costs are
accruing
• Lower quality -> slow processes allow for
“dirty” workarounds and hide quality
problems (which in turn increase costs
due to rework)
15. Corollary of fast processes
For any given process, if
you can reduce the Time it
takes to execute it, you will
consequently reduce Costs
and increase Quality
16. CASE I: How to reduce the time it takes
to execute a particular process
17. Technique 1: Value Stream Mapping
Simple example
Action Value added (in min) Waste (in min)
Partner calls in with an 5 min 0 min
order (100 CDs)
Order is added to in-house 1 min 10 min
system
Order is assigned in factory 0 min 5 min
Order waits for a minimum 0 min ~2 day (2880 min)
batch size (e.g. 1000)
Order box is created 1 min x # of CDs = 100 min 5 min x #CDs = 500 min
Order mail package created 0 min 10 min
Mail Packages are created 5 min 50 min (1 of 10 orders on
for all orders average)
Mail Packages shipped 5 min 50 min (1 / 10 on average)
Mail delay 0 min ~2 day (2880 min)
Total 116 min 6385 min
18.
19. What happens if you improve the
activity that is NOT a bottleneck?
Input
Result
And don’t forget the Little law!
25. Different content abstractions for
different stakeholders
Product
Portfolio Items
Marketing and
– Customer
marketable Epics Portfolio
Longer term
Product Owner
planning (more
+ Architect + UX
than 1 iteration) Features
Where the
rubber meets
the road – what
we do in one
User Stories Team +
Product
iteration Owner
26. Different ways to manage a
portfolio of Epics/Features
Epic Epic Epic Epic Epic Option 1:
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
• Many epics
Feature Feature Feature
• Shallow implementation
Feature Feature
Feature
• New market / new business
Feature Feature Feature Feature
innovation
• Typical goal: catch up (me too or
Epic Epic
tick-in-box products for reviews)
Feature Feature
Feature Feature
Option 2:
Feature Feature
• Few epics
Feature Feature • Deep implementation
Feature Feature • Technological innovation
Feature Feature • Typical goal: Hero products,
Feature unique experiences, Niche-
Feature focused products
Feature
31. CASE III: The learning process for the
whole company
32. Step 1: A classic waterfall-like process
framework
Product Realization General Availability Discontinuation
Idea Release Feasibilty Project Development Iterations System Beta RC Launch Market
Screening Planning Study Initiation Test Validation Validation Preparation Launch
Screening and Initiation Development Validation Release
S3 S2 S1 DA Dn ... D2 D1 V3 V2 V1 R2 R1
Product life-cycle and product realization cycle
• Learning comes too late
• Requires the world to be perfect
• Not flexible to changes (especially late changes)
33. Step 2: Agile process framework for the
whole company
• Includes feedback/learning cycles for major
company processes
• Regular reviews allow us to adapt to change
34. Now for the real challenge…
ACT III – How to take this into practice?
36. Flexible Scope techniques
Breadth of the portfolio
How many experiences do we offer our customers?
Epic Epic Epic Epic Epic
Is this Epic a “kick-ass” or a “me too” or
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
Depth of the portfolio
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
a “check in box”?
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
Feature Feature
Feature Feature
Feature Feature
Feature
39. Here’s a tip you can take to the bank:
Hire someone who has done it before.
40. Currently an Agile Coach at Avira, Vasco Duarte is an
experienced Product and Project Manager. Having
worked in the software industry since 1997, Vasco
has also been an Agile practitioner since 2004, he is
one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods
and Agile culture adoption at Avira and previously at
Nokia and F-Secure.
Vasco's contributions to the development of the
Software industry and professions can be read at his
blog:
http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.blogspot.com
Or you can follow Vasco on Twitter: @duarte_vasco
Tweet or send me an e-mail:
duarte_vasco@yahoo.com
Editor's Notes
So we are here as Product managers. As people that want to contribute to one of the key aspects in our companies’ internal processes: doing the right things. We can spend a long time talking about how we can do things better, but if we are doing the wrong things that amounts to being better at doing the wrong thing. Doing the wrong thing faster is not how we can be better than the competition.
In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks; that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products. You as a Product Manager need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, like do we add feature A or feature B. We need to think beyond the silo of our function.You see, the problem is that we need:To know what is next, so that we can be better than the competitionTo understand what processes are slow, so that we can help make them faster and beat the competition to the marketTo test what works so that we find the right product, the right product mix for our customers
All of these would be possible if we could learn and adapt quickly, including the customer feedback and faster processes. So, the question for us today is: how do we achieve that? How can we, as Product Managers, contribute to the improvement of our organization in a way that allows us to be better by learning and adapting to new circumstances; allows us to be quicker, by removing waste from our processes and do what is needed only.
Arguably we can be faster, much faster than we are today. When experts review the way we work in an average company they typically find that a large, very large percentage of the work that is done in those companies is just waste. This is work that we do (because we’ve always done those) but does not provide any value to our customers.
This is a serious issue because everything we do adds cost to our products or services. So, if we do not add value we are basically using money that we can never get back. No added value! Many consultancies quote value-to-waste ratios of about 1-5 %. That means 95% is waste!!!!
Another important finding is that slow processes are typically co-related with lower quality. This of course makes a lot of sense, because the quicker the process the less errors you can make. If you did the process would be slow, by for example: adding a large validation and verification phase at the end of the project (show picture of a waterfall with the testing/validation appearing at the end).Waste can be removed from any process, but never by looking at that process in isolation.
Example of the manufacturing process: Value Stream Mapping and how-to
This is small example of when we looked at the order fulfilling process of a company that sold consumer software (CD in box)And here we are not even looking at the amount of inventory that this company kept to cope with the delay in printing the actual CD’s.
Let me ask you this question again: What have you done for your customers lately?The waste we identified could not all be removed, but some of it was and we knew what longer-term changes we needed to achieve a much leaner, less wasteful process. This technique called, Value Stream Mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_stream_mapping) can be used on any process, but keep this in mind:It should cover the whole process (from idea to product), like we saw earlier, if it takes 6 months to approve a project, the delays in R&D are the least of your worries.
If you do not include key steps in the process you run the risk of improving a part of the process that does not help you improve your organization: In a network of activities, improving one of them does not improve the overall performance of the network.As a Product Manager you are in a key role to improve your company’s process. If you keep stuffing R&D with ideas and do not allow time for improvement all that you get is a slower and slower process (Little’s law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little's_law). Improving the speed of your processes is STEP 1 in your quest to improve your competitiveness.
Waste identification and removal is one of the key tools in the Lean approach to continuous improvement. However being very good at removing waste can only make you faster. You still have to learn how to do the right things and give your customers a compelling experience or service. One of the corner stones of Agile is Feedback, especially customer feedback. Again, here Product Managers are in a key position to help their companies improve.
The first focus should be to stop working on long term roadmaps that are non-negotiable. Accept it, you cannot know now what will be relevant in 1, 2 or 3 years. Fine, we accept it, but how can we make it work? How can I go to a customer meeting about a future product if I don’t have a roadmap?
These are important questions, but start by accepting that you just don’t know. When a customer asks you “What will I have for next year’s release/product/service?” you have an excellent opportunity to learn from that customer. Why not ask back “what do you see would be critical for your business in 1 year’s time?”This builds a much needed dialogue with the customer and gives you a key advantage in sales: you just got your customer to partially commit to you by having them state what they want in your product!
So, the challenge is how do we manage the long-term development of our products without writing in stone the long-term roadmaps? As a Product Manager you need to consider what is important for your business and have an idea of what your business should offer it’s customer, but tying your hands is not the best approach.
In one of the largest programs we’ve run we used a technique that allowed us to make our requirements flexible even as we gave quite clear direction to our development teams about the longer term (they need this for skill development for example). How did it work?
Three layers of requirements: Epics -> Features -> Stories with different layers of ownership and details.These levels of abstraction allow the organization entities to focus on managing only the appropriate set of requirements that they need to get their job done.
The flexible portfolio with the 2 dimensions of flexibilityThe example of the word-editor that can be Notepad or Word
The advantages of this approach is that it creates a feedback loop into the portfolio and allows us to manage the depth of each Epic to fit the time we have (innovation and competitiveness).This is a technique you can start using tomorrow. Draw the two dimensions for your portfolio. Consider what is relevant for you: few deep features vs. many shallow features.
The case above is just an example of how you can create a feedback loop that helps your company learn and adapt to the reality as it emerges.But there is more to Agile than Portfolio management. We need to be able to design processes that allow our company to learn and adapt.
In a waterfall project no one is in control at the end (show bug curve at the end). Much overtime will be needed to get this product out, and that will be on your backs and on the backs of the product development group (be it software or other complex product). This typically leads to a pattern that some have called “Death March” (concentration camp picture), and that’s how it feels. It feels like we are marching to a concentration camp (rant about lives destroyed by this approach).You have a responsibility to avoid this pattern in your place of work, and you can do it. Here’s how.
In an Agile product development process we involve the product development team from the beginning. This gives us a very quick feedback loop about the product we are designing and concepting. This feedback loop is important in order to1. Create a product that is feasible from the technical point of view2. Allow the R&D teams to contribute their deep-technical knowledge and provide technical innovation to the product that you may not be aware of. Example: take advantage of dual core technology
In one of the largest programs we’ve run we used a technique that allowed us to make our requirements flexible even as we gave quite clear direction to our development teams about the longer term (they need this for skill development for example). How did it work?
Here we can see a completely different approach to how to design a company-wide process. The overriding metaphor here is Cycles. Cycles that fulfill different needs in the company but that need to interact for us to be able to take advantage of the value created in each of the cycles. (Explain the function of each of the cycles and how that allows for quick feedback and learning)
So here’s what you can do tomorrow:Analyze how you are working today and remove the work that is not needed. In GE they used to have workout sessions to do this. See: WORK OUT! You can use VSM as a technique and you can learn more here: (link to VSM example)
Work with your customers. Use the Flexible Content technique we talked about to both have a dialogue with the customer, but allow flexibility to include the most valuable knowledge that you find later in the project.
What cycles do you already have in your organization? Evaluate them and then use them to build a feedback chain. So that what you discover in the field is not lost, but goes into the product development process.
Finally: stop adding new things before you get something out. Don’t fight mathematics, you’ll never win (Little’s Law). Stop starting and Start finishing!
Finally, I’d like to leave you with a tip that can potentially save you millions and millions of euros.Hire someone with experience in this process!